Ben Hogan Actually Left-Handed?

[iacas]

3 hours ago, turtleback said:

Ben Hogan was said to be a natural left-hander and he won the British Open playing right-handed.  From his Wikipedia page:

If you keep going down that Wikipedia page:

Many believed that although he played right-handed as an adult, Hogan was actually left-handed. In his book "Five Lessons," in the chapter entitled "The Grip," Hogan said "I was born left-handed -- that was the normal way for me to do things. I was switched over to doing things right-handed when I was a boy but I started golf as a left-hander because the first club I ever came into possession of, an old five-iron, was a left-handed stick." This belief also seemed to be corroborated by Hogan himself in his earlier book "Power Golf." However, some mystery still remains about this since Hogan in subsequent interviews said that the belief of his being left-handed was actually a myth (noted in what was probably his last video interview and in his 1987 Golf Magazine interview).

In these interviews Hogan said that he was indeed a right-handed player who early on practiced/played with a left-hand club that had been given to him because it was all that he had and that it was this issue that brought about the myth that he was left-handed. This may be the reason that his early play with right-handed equipment found him using a cross-handed grip (right hand at the end of the club, left hand below it). In "The Search for the Perfect Golf Swing", researchers Cochran and Stobbs held the opinion that a left-handed person playing right-handed would be prone to hook the ball.

1 hour ago, turtleback said:

And I'm sorry I ruined your trivia point.  I first came across this fact in a book I've referenced before called Pro: Frank Beard on the Golf Tour which was a sports diary book. Beard remarked on the irony of fans seeing Bob Charles swinging left-handed and signing autographs right-handed while Hogan swung right-handed  but signed autographs left-handed.  And for some reason that stuck to me for 50+ years.

There's always been a bit of a mystery here. Ben may have even played into it, as hinted at above, because he liked the mystique.

I don't know about you, but that looks like a right-handed signature. The letters lean like /, not like \.

But, it doesn't look like a very good righty signature. So maybe he signed it righty? Or maybe he signed it lefty but tried to make it look like a righty? Or maybe his handwriting was just really bad?

[turtleback]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

If you keep going down that Wikipedia page:

Many believed that although he played right-handed as an adult, Hogan was actually left-handed. In his book "Five Lessons," in the chapter entitled "The Grip," Hogan said "I was born left-handed -- that was the normal way for me to do things. I was switched over to doing things right-handed when I was a boy but I started golf as a left-hander because the first club I ever came into possession of, an old five-iron, was a left-handed stick." This belief also seemed to be corroborated by Hogan himself in his earlier book "Power Golf." However, some mystery still remains about this since Hogan in subsequent interviews said that the belief of his being left-handed was actually a myth (noted in what was probably his last video interview and in his 1987 Golf Magazine interview).

In these interviews Hogan said that he was indeed a right-handed player who early on practiced/played with a left-hand club that had been given to him because it was all that he had and that it was this issue that brought about the myth that he was left-handed. This may be the reason that his early play with right-handed equipment found him using a cross-handed grip (right hand at the end of the club, left hand below it). In "The Search for the Perfect Golf Swing", researchers Cochran and Stobbs held the opinion that a left-handed person playing right-handed would be prone to hook the ball.

There's always been a bit of a mystery here. Ben may have even played into it, as hinted at above, because he liked the mystique.

I don't know about you, but that looks like a right-handed signature. The letters lean like /, not like \.

But, it doesn't look like a very good righty signature. So maybe he signed it righty? Or maybe he signed it lefty but tried to make it look like a righty? Or maybe his handwriting was just really bad?

Yeah, I was aware of that bit of uncertainty about it which is why I wrote "Ben Hogan was said to be a natural left-hander " rather than asserting it as a fact.  Personally I tend to go with the left-handed theory but is certainly not 100%.  And it is a little strange that he attributes the "myth" to what other people observed about him when he himself spelled it out in a published work.

But then again he was a little strange.  Nowadays his strangeness would probably be attributed to his father's suicide when he was 9, and possible inherited mental problems.  And maybe it was.

Ironically, my older daughter is a pure lefty, but when she dabbled in golf she played rights.  But that was more an equipment availability thing and then a comfort level thing.

By the by, we used to have a 'spoiler font' that blacked out text unless the reader did something to be able to read it.  Has that gone away, because I don't see it.

Edited July 24, 2023 by turtleback

[iacas]

30 minutes ago, turtleback said:

Ironically, my older daughter is a pure lefty, but when she dabbled in golf she played rights.  But that was more an equipment availability thing and then a comfort level thing.

Wise move, especially for women's/girl's equipment.

30 minutes ago, turtleback said:

By the by, we used to have a 'spoiler font' that blacked out text unless the reader did something to be able to read it.  Has that gone away, because I don't see it.

Well…

Spoiler

It's still there, and it's never gone away once we got it. This site never blacked out text that I recall… it's always been these little disclosure boxes.

[turtleback]

22 hours ago, iacas said:

Wise move, especially for women's/girl's equipment.

Well…

  Reveal hidden contents

It's still there, and it's never gone away once we got it. This site never blacked out text that I recall… it's always been these little disclosure boxes.

Spoiler

Ah, there it is.  Thanks,

 

[phan52]

My older brother and me are both left-handed but have always played golf right-handed. When we were very young, my dad cut down a few of his old clubs for us to knock around our expansive back yard. This was before either of us picked up a baseball bat and it became a natural motion. I ended up playing hockey and swinging a baseball bat right-handed, but I am a true lefty. I can't throw a baseball 50 feet right-handed.